"Not the Time to be Ladylike and Follow Rules Doled Out by the Establishment"

by Mary Lou Singleton

Mary Lou Singleton is a licensed Midwife and Family Nurse Practitioner, as well as Founder ofPersonhood for Women.

Like most women who believe they deserve full human rights and dignity, I am furious. Actually, I alternate between feelings of total despair and full-bodied rage as I watch the rights of women in the United States, like those of women all over the world, erode to the point where we are considered nothing more than public breeding stock. I live in a country that has failed for close to 100 years to give women full constitutional rights in the form of the Equal Rights Amendment, but now recognizes constitutional and human rights for capitalist corporations. Worse yet, constitutional rights and protections are being legally conferred to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses. The lack of a ratified ERA combined with codification of fetal personhood together relegate women in the US to the legal status of state-regulated incubators. I am a life-long women's rights activist and have been a practicing midwife for over 20 years. Midwives carry the privelege and burden of knowing and witnessing the most private details of women's lives. From this knowledge, I am fully aware that the majority of the women I have served have made the decision to abort a pregnancy at some point in their reproductive lives. From conversations with other midwives, I believe the often quoted statistic that one in three women will have an abortion is an understatement. Very rarely do I encounter a woman who regrets her decision to have an abortion. More frequently I hear the tearful confession of a woman who is having post-partum depression or difficulty bonding or alienation from older children telling me that she never wanted to have children in the first place but felt she had no choice. Sadly, as I watch the erosion of abortion rights in our country, I expect to hear more and more of these confessions.

I support the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride because no other organization in the country is speaking the full truth about abortion rights. Forced motherhood absolutely is female enslavement. Without the right to abortion on demand, women are not free. There is no greater human rights abuse than forcing a woman to endure the threats to her emotional and physical health that are inherent in pregnancy and childbirth against her will. There is no more misogynist statement than the odious, "Adoption, not abortion." Forcing women to gestate and give birth is barbaric and criminal.

I support the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride because under the guidance of the Democratic Party and mainstream pro-choice organizations, the right to abortion has basically disappeared in large swaths of our country. I no longer believe that following the instructions of the non-profit industrial complex and the Democratic Party will do anything to stop the erosion of women's rights, let alone lead to an expansion of abortion rights in the US. This is not the time to be nice and ladylike and follow the rules doled out by the same establishment that has failed to protect us from having our rights ripped away. This is an emergency.

The majority of American women aready cannot access safe, legal, affordable abortion. Women are already being forced to give birth to children that they do not want. Hundreds of women are already in jail for crimes against fetuses. Pregnancy has become a nine-month suspension of our civil liberties. And as far as I can see, things are getting worse and worse and worse.

Stop Patriarchy is right to call for a mass mobilization to defend women's rights. Stop Partriarchy is absolutely right that we need to change the terms of the conversation and expose the attacks on abortion and the expansion of fetal personhood legislation for what they are: a so-far successful strategy to destroy women's bodily autonomy and personhood. We need to confront the forces of religious fascism and expose them with all of the power we can muster.

If, like me, you are angry, I ask you to unleash your fury and fight like hell for the rights of women. I ask you to sign the Abortion on Demand and Without Apology statement. I ask you to stop making apologetic statements about abortion and come out loud and proud as a supporter of abortion on demand for all women. I ask you to contemplate the strategies being proposed by mainstream, professional pro-choice groups and decide for yourself whether or not donating more money to Democratic candidates is going to expand women's rights when the Democratic Party has done nothing so far to stem the tide of anti-abortion legislation. Ask yourself how it will be of use to women to donate to abortion access funds when there are no legal abortion clinics to access. In this critical moment where abortion rights have already been lost for the majority of women and are hanging by a thread for the rest of us, I ask you to donate to the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride and help change the terms of this war on women.

Furiously,Mary Lou SingletonLicensed Midwife and Family Nurse PractitionerFounder of Personhood for Women,personhoodforwomen.org

Today, be someone who dares to take a stand for women's lives. There is nothing "moral" about denying women the right to abortion.Forced motherhood is female enslavement!Abortion rights are worth fighting for. Abortion on demand & without apology!ADD YOUR VOICE. IT MATTERS.

Who is stop patriarchy?

Stop Patriarchy is a group for everyone who wants to FIGHT to STOP the enslavement of women. Not politely lobby against it. Not grumble at the TV. Not simply post things on Twitter. And definitely not sit around waiting for those in power to “come to their senses.” It is also a movement for everyone who can be won to see the need for this – we are fighting aggressively to change minds and to grow and deepen and escalate until we succeed in changing everything. JOIN US!